Moiz Ahmad Shahka, Hafiz Ahsan Shehryar, Muhammad Umar Javed.
Prevalence of Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C virus Infection in an Ophthalmology Clinic.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;12(1):225-7.

Aim: To determine the prevalence of hepatitis B and C virus infections in patients presenting in ophthalmology clinic of Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi . Methods: This prospective, observational study consisting of 215 patients was conducted from June- 2016 to January-2017. Patients who were planned for any invasive procedure were included in this analysis. A phlebotomist took venous blood samples from all patients and these samples were then processed in hematology lab of the hospital to detect HBV or HCV infection. Fisher’s Exact test and Chi-square test (where applicable) was used to compare frequency of HBV and HCV in male and female gender. Results: Mean age of our study participants was 53.44 +/-10.61 (range 19-73) years. There were 113(52.55%) male and 1 02(47.45%) female patients. Hepatitis was diagnosed in 22(10.23%) patients. There were 16(7.44%) patients who were having HCV and 6(2.79%) patients were having HVB infection. No patient was diagnosed of having combined HBV and HCV infection. On comparison of hepatitis infection between male and female gender, HCV was found in 7(3.25%) males and 9(4.18%) females, While HBV was found in 4(1.86%) males and 2 (0.93%) females Conclusion: Incidence of HCV and HBV is higher in our population. So patients should be screened for HBV and HCV before doing any invasive procedure. The health care workers should adopt preventive measures such as wearing of gloves, face masks and eye protection glasses before attending these patients.

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